Guilt Trip
by mistressmarionette
Summary: Xgent! Argent goes to visit Red X after a fight.


Xgent! Yay! I'm really starting to love this couple.

* * *

**Guilt Trip**

She'd gotten him good.

It hadn't even been an intentional shot. Just instincts. Argent had been falling, and all she could think of was to shoot off something powerful, something big.

It caught him low in the ribs. She had heard the crack.

There hadn't been time to think on it then. She had had to figure out how the hell she was going to land without splitting her head open. Instincts kicked in again, and she made it.

But now she had time to think.

She knocked on his door. It swung open. Fear dumped itself into her stomach, like swallowing ice.

She stomped in, expecting the place to be torn to shreds. He could have been attacked while he was injured. The idiot police might have finally figured out what two and two equaled.

She heard wheezing. She saw a dark lump on his bed that looked about his size. She sighed.

"You didn't even get undressed," She said plainly.

He lifted his head. His skull mask was off, at least. He looked pissed. "Your fault, if I can't."

She cocked her head. "Need help?"

He snorted, and let his head drop. "If all you're looking for is a good fuck, you're gonna have to go somewhere else."

She toed off her boots and climbed onto the bed. "Come on. You can't sleep in gear."

"The hell I can't."

She sneered, and tried to pull at his costume sleeve. He hissed and pulled away. "I didn't hit you in the arm!" She snapped. "Come on, sit up."

He shook his head. "Can't."

"Stop being a baby."

"Don't fucking tell me what to do," He turned his head away. "Fuck off."

She sat back on her heels, chewing her lips. "Look, I'm sorry, okay?"

He smirked at that. "I'll bet."

She smacked his arm, and he hissed again. "Roll over," she commanded. "Unless you want me to _make_ you."

He threw her a look that made her stomach coil--he was good at doing things like that—but managed to push himself up and over on one side. He gasped just before he was all the way on his stomach. "That's as far…" He wheezed. Argent decided it would have to do. She found the hidden catch in his costume, and began to peel the material away as carefully as she could. The dark fabric fell away to reveal the usual: more swarthy skin, traced over by the palest, ugliest scars. Argent didn't know what they were from, and honestly, she didn't even want to ask. She never had. And there, just at the base of his ribcage:

"That's some bruise," She said softly. He grunted. She wondered if he was trying to laugh.

He began to roll back, and Argent had to scramble to get out of his way.

"If it's bruised on both sides," She continued, "then it must be broken. I hit you from the front."

He grunted again. She resisted the urge to hit him.

"That means we have to take you to a doctor?" She said pointedly.

A real chuckle made it out this time. "Wow," He said hoarsely. "You feel bad enough to take me to a doctor?"

She felt her face scrunching up, and tried to stop the action. He always started laughing when she got mad. He said the 'angry' faces she made reminded him of clowns.

"Listen, girl. We go to a hospital, I go to jail."

"If you don't get medical help, you'll cripple yourself!"

"And whose fault is that?"

Argent sucked air hard through her teeth. "What did I _just_ say? I'm _sorry_."

He snorted. It looked painful. "Not _that_ sorry. Take me to a hospital, get me in jail…you'll still be doing your job. But taking me to a hospital would make you feel _better_, wouldn't it? Just so long as you can say, 'I did the right thing'."

She vaulted herself off her bed. "You're obviously doing fine. I'll go," She said, disgusted.

She didn't even make it to the door before he said, "Hey. Get back here."

Tossing off his words would have been so easy. Leaving him there to rot would have served him right. He deserved it.

But he was right. She cared a lot about being able to at least say she was doing right.

She didn't turn around, but she stopped. "What now?"

"If you feel so bad, stay here."

"So you can keep telling me what a bitch I am?"

"You're cute when you're mad."

She turned around. "You know, I'm not going to fuck you in that condition."

He laughed. A real, dry laugh. For a horrible moment, Argent wondered if all that gasping and wheezing from before had just been him trying to pull a good guilt trip on her. That was something he'd do.

Then he started coughing.

"Pathetic," She said to herself. To him, she said, "I can't stay. Robin's starting to realize that I don't always go back to Titans Tower. He'll be checking on me."

"So Robin wins over me?"

"Will you stop being such a fucking dick?"

"Sorry," He grinned lazily. "This chick beat the crap out of me today, and now my whole body hurts."

"Then let me take you to a hospital!" She screamed.

He shook his head. "Just stay here for a while, babe."

"Babe," Argent sneered as she stomped back to his bed. "You must be desperate."

"Yeah sure," He patted a space on the mattress next to him. "Hop in."

She pulled back the covers and wriggled in next to him, cautious of getting too close. Then she felt his arm scooping under her, hooking her waist and drawing her closer.

"I thought your arm hurt?" She asked nastily. He didn't answer, and she resigned herself to pillowing her head on his shoulder, where it ought not to hurt.

She looked at his face. His hair was sticking to his forehead, plastered there by sweat, and his charcoal eyes roving over the ceiling. His teeth were worrying at his lips, tearing the thin skin and drawing blood. He gasped suddenly, back arching, fingers digging into her dress, and she began to understand why he wanted her to stay the night.

She shifted out of the crook of his arm. He flicked a glance at her. "What…?"

She pulled herself up so their faces were level, and began pushing the dark strands of hair away from his face in fistfuls. She descended on his mouth and sucked at the wounds he'd made on his lips. She felt his hand rise to her back, stroking over the ties holding the bodice of her outfit together, pulling her closer to him. She thought about unlacing them for him, but decided against it. She was sure he wouldn't be up to anything like that tonight.

She sat up, straddling his hips. "I _am_ sorry."

He looked away. "Huh."

"I know you are, too."

"Got nothing to be sorry for," He said stubbornly, but she saw the way his jaw twitched and knew.

She sighed.

"We're really bad for each other," She said finally, curling up again at his side. His arms encircled her. He was awfully warm. Argent let herself relax, coaching herself not to care about the bruise on his chest, the unlocked door of his apartment, what she was going to tell Robin in the morning.

She wouldn't be able to tell him she'd done the right thing.


End file.
